With EUR504,100 in assets from 11 investors, Audas Piscator has never been in the spotlight on a mutual fund market where large money market funds managing assets of hundreds of million euros from tens of thousand clients call the shots.
This has changed recently, though, as the return generated by the fund over the past month (August 23 – September 23) climbed to 14% in euros, while all equity funds are logging losses and the monthly returns of money market funds do not go beyond 1% in lei.
Audas Piscator is managed by Piscator Capital, is euro-denominated and has a diversified investment strategy. Over the past month, the fund has gained 14%, but has lost 16% in euros since the start of the year.
“We took short positions on stocks and Dow Jones U.S. index and we thus reached the 14% return of the past month. In recent months, Audas Piscator has directed investments so that it may gain from the unfavorable global market conditions and is trying to remain positioned for renewed bourse declines on the medium term,” said Dragos Balaci, president of management company Piscator Capital and a former main dealer with RBS Bank.
The fund’s performance is way above the returns the rest of mutual funds have registered. Equity funds have had losses of between -12% and -1% over the past month, diversified funds have not gained more than 0.09%, while the performance of currency and bond funds ranges between 0.1% and 0.6%.
The manager of the fund is Piscator Capital, one of the smallest asset managers in Romania, controlled by Liviu Stefan Arnautu, a former main dealer of Emporiki Bank.
The company currently manages assets worth around RON22.1 million and holds less than 1% in the investment fund market with a value of over RON8 billion. The company’s assets have soared since the start of the year mainly owing to Piscator Equity Plus.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu; Editing by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)